The Case of the Superstar Scam

Review: Milo and Jazz investigate a series of mysterious letters requesting their friends turn in prized fan memorabilia for a chance to appear on a television show in The Case of the Superstar Scam, the tenth mystery in this series of chapter mysteries for children by Lewis B. Montgomery.

Teen idol Starr Silveira has chosen Westview to film a "small town" episode of her hit television series, Super Starr! Though Milo and Jazz are fans, they aren't super fans like the members of the WFSS — "Westview Fans of Super Starr" — a group Jazz calls the "woofs". Each of the five woofs has one of just 100 silver guitar picks distributed to fans, identical to what Starr uses in her show to fight crime. But when each of the woofs receives a letter saying they have a chance to appear in the episode if only they'd turn in their pick, Milo and Jazz are suspicious. Could this be a scheme devised by someone as a means of obtaining one of the rare picks to have as their own?

The premise of this series is that Milo and Jazz are investigators in training, corresponding (via mail) with Dash Marlowe, a world-famous private eye. The technique illustrated here is using a Venn diagram to help them sort out their clues, deciding which are important to the case and which are incidental. From this perspective, the mystery (and its solution) works, but there remain a couple of loose threads that aren't quite neatly tied up at the end. Based on the way in which the story plays out, it almost seems, however, as if Starr's motto — "no time for crime" — is the more important lesson to be learned here … which, to be sure, is a good one for readers of all ages.

As with all the books in this series, a number of interesting and diverse puzzles and brain-teasers are presented at the end.

As of the date of this review, no Lexile measure has been assigned to this book, though previous books in the series have been assigned values of 420L to 520L. The publisher recommends the book for readers aged 7 to 11, RL: 3.

Acknowledgment: The Kane Press provided a copy of The Case of the Superstar Scam for this review.